Research History

2013

January/February: Laboratory Analysis
After washing the artifacts through the fall, Kjarstin, Jamie, and I sorted and cataloged all materials collected to date, some 15,000+ individual artifacts. These were bagged separately by classification, using a field specimen number/lab specimen number/analysis specimen number system. The resulting FSN/LSN/ASN catalog was maintained in Microsoft Access and backed up in multiple media in various places both in stages and as a completed document

2012

November: ExcavationsWe closed out the dissertation-related excavations by testing several of the loci identified by geophysical surveys in 2010 and 2012 and finishing the portion of Feature 1 found in October. Two of the tested loci appear to have been early-2oth century farm buildings, one of which was probably a hog barn. Locus 8 appears to have been an antebellum-to-Civil War era residence, though with only one excavation unit dug into it, that interpretation is provisional.The additional work on Feature 1 found it to be a collapsed cellar full of animal bone and pier stones. We also recovered fragments of the Mother’s Worm Syrup bottle covered in this blog post.

June:Shovel TestingStudents from the Site Survey class of the Arkansas Archeological Society’s annual Training Program, held at Historic Washington State Park. We focused on the area on the old Lafayette County side of the river. We excavated 32 shovel tests and identified a historic scatter dating to the late-19th and early-20th centuries.

March 2012: Spring Break DigUsing the findings from the geophysical survey, we excavated five 2x2m test units with the assistance of 28 volunteers from all over southern Arkansas.

February: Geophysical ExplorationsThe ARAS-SAU Research Station borrowed a Bartington Grad601 gradiometer array from the ARAS-UAF Research Station in Fayetteville. With assistance of volunteers, the SAU staff collected 40 grids’ worth of data. These grids lay on both the Hempstead County and former Lafayette County sides of the Red River.Added to the grids collected in early 2010, these grids help fill in the picture of near-surface archaeological deposits in the vicinity of the old ferry crossing.

2010

Summer: Excavations
As part of the University of Arkansas field school at Historic Washington State Park, I oversaw the excavation of three 2x2m units at Locus 7, identified through the spring’s gradiometer survey.

Spring: Geophysical Explorations
Large-scale survey of much of the field south of Hempstead County Road 7. John Samuelsen (ARAS-CSP), Dr. Jamie Brandon (ARAS-SAU), and Holli Howard (ARAS-SAU).

2008

August: Shovel Testing
We started sub-surface testing of the area surrounding the old ferry crossing by performing a metal detector-based shovel test survey.